Recent shoreline changes on Ba Lang Beach, Northern Nha Trang Bay, Vietnam

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate the shoreline changes before and after the road construction based on the rectified aerial photograph analysis. Analyzed results indicated that the impact of the new road construction is a main reason causing the disappearance of sandy beach on Ba Lang region. The straight forward direction of the road had changed the incidence wave angle to the shoreline. As a result, the unbalancing of wave-induced longshore current caused the sediment moving to either left-hand side or right-hand side direction dependent on the location on the beach. These results are also suggested that in order to recover the sandy beach in this area, the shape of shoreline position has to have a similar concave shape as previous shoreline position.